Final Stretch

Over at SI.com, Cliff takes a look at the leading candidates for fancy awards. Here’s his take on the AL CY Young race (doesn’t include last night’s numbers):

1) CC Sabathia, LHP, Yankees (1)

Season stats: 19-5, 3.02 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 7.3 K/9, 2.54 K/BB, 2 CG

Sabathia continued his march to the Cy Young with eight-innings of one-hit ball against the A’s on Thursday. That earned him his sixth-straight win, tying his career-high of 19. Over his last 18 starts, he is 16-2 with a 2.40 ERA. If he can get his ERA below 3.00, King Felix doesn’t stand a chance.

Cover up the win-loss records of the top two men on this list and see if you can make an argument for Sabathia over Hernandez. Go ahead, dig deeper into the stats. There’s no doubt that Hernandez has been the best pitcher in the American League this season, but though he finally got his record over .500 with eight strong innings against the Indians on Sunday (including nine strikeouts against juts one walk), I find it difficult to believe that enough of the voters will look past his eight-win deficit to Sabathia to give the award to Hernandez.